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If I bought a Pontiac Vibe, I would debadge it. I wouldn't want someone to think I was stupid enough to buy a Detroit vehicle when in reality a Vibe is truly a Toyota Matrix.
I ALWAYS take the dealer brands off my cars immediately when I get home.
dealers badges definitely come off (as well as license plate frames that have dealer names on them). I also will de-badge vehicles if it makes it look more 'balanced'. I had an e46 M3 and de-badged the trunk so it just has the Roundel in the center. Currently, I have a STI that is also de-badged so it just has the Subaru emblem on the back.
It also helps when you wash/wax the car... no snagging of the wash mitt/towels.
Why would you wanna do that!? It's not about advertising. It's about representing the company that (hopefully) makes good cars.
I went as far to customize (spent several days doing it and years of trial and error) to create this emblem...Which unfortunently I had to pull off my wrecked vehicle
In addition, debadging something makes it look 'bootleg' and 'generic'. Would you pull the Nike sign off your shoes? Sony off your TV? Blackberry off your phone?
Last edited by CruisingUSA; 07-23-2011 at 11:16 PM..
I've taken a few badges off of my cars for but only because I thought it looked cleaner. I never done it so I could try to avoid helping the manufacturer sell another car.
Usually debadging was done simply to make the car look cleaner, just like dechroming and shaving the door handles. I've done it on plenty of custom cars over the years. It was a common thing in '50s style customizing:
Emblems and the like were shaved to look smooth, with only enough trim left to accent the bodylines.
Personally I don't get why car manufacturers have to put their logos and crap all over their cars and being a man who's totally sick of advertisements everywhere I look, I don't understand why I should spend 20-50K on a new car and be a rolling billboard for the car manufacturers. I know what kind of car I'm driving and the cops can look up my license plate if they want to know so they can write me up ... so the only other reason to badge a car in the first place is for free advertising, is it not?
So would you (or have you) de-badged your car? Is it purely aesthetics to do it, "sticking it to the Man" by being anti-consumerist or maybe even some kind of reverse-snobbery? Whatdaya think?
i am generally a fan of de-badging - cleaner looks. if a car's badges arent gawdy or unnecessarilly large, ect, i probably wouldnt bother. asthetically speaking, i dont think that de-badging ever makes a car look worse.
the only thing i have a problem with is false badging - adding upscale badging to a downscale model.
my '96 Camaro Z28's badging arent too gawdy or flamboyant. the badging on my 89 5.0 isnt over the top either: two ford blue ovals, two 5.0 badges, and one LX badge, all fairly small. i could do without the big "FORMULA 350" stickers on the doors of my 89 Firebird.
my 67 Firebird is completely debadged. the only thing it still has is the bird crest on the gas cap lid, center rear of the car. it came from the factory with a 326 and 326 badges on the hood. it now has a 400 and a 400 hood. rather than have the car represent itself as a Firebird 400, which it is not, i took off all the badges, and it looks sleeker without them.
chingow! anybody wanna buy my Camaro so i can get this 67 back on the road?
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